锋二瓜 Feng

😄😄😄

[Tim Draper @TimDraper]

Thanks to the Bentley University Investment Group for inviting me to give the keynote address!

Here’s the advice I gave:

𝗢𝗻 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽

→ Expect to pivot. No big business grew in a straight line.

→ Listen to customers and find out what they'll actually pay for.

→ Look for industries that are fat, lazy, and providing bad service at high cost (often the ones advertising on TV).

→ Use new technologies to disrupt those industries

→ Love your first customer, make them happy, then the next. They become your salesforce.

→ Make lots of deals; every good deal makes both parties better off.

→ Missionaries (those driven by mission) outperform mercenaries (those chasing money).

𝗢𝗻 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆

→ Do the hardest thing first every day.

→ Don't procrastinate, it kills innovation.

→ Make short-term sacrifices for long-term success.

→ Strive to be the best. #1 makes money.

𝗢𝗻 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 & 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀

→ Ask stupid questions. The stupider the question, the more you learn

→ Go gain knowledge before implementing your creativity.

𝗢𝗻 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 & 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆

→ Want your friends to succeed, even more than yourself because you want to be surrounded by successful, dynamic people.

→ Cheer everyone around you on.

𝗢𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗲

→ Failure by omission is often the biggest mistake (missing opportunities).

→ Even if you fail, you moved the ball forward for everyone.

→ Keep your ego in check on both success and failure.

𝗢𝗻 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 & 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀

→ Finance is the difference between success and failure, it's not meaningless.

→ Don't count your money before you get it.

→ Give customers a little more than you take. It pays off long-term.

𝗢𝗻 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺 & 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆

→ Free countries enable innovation. Lack of freedom kills it.

→ The best leaders set clear guidelines and trust their people to innovate.

→ Competition between governments keeps them accountable.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@achow101 You have a lot of courage. But I don't think most people care about your personal affair which is different from most people. You don't have to point it out specifically or post it on your account. Let's pretend we don't know about it. Isn't it good to ignore the difference?

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@chris_fba4u I can open it with a web page in China. Probably not banned by the Chinese government.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@kanzure Let's not always go to extremes. The declining birth rate is indeed a serious problem. Building that gigafactory you're talking about is indeed a rubbish idea.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

It was an enlightening experience

[WhalePanda @WhalePanda]

A thread on moving abroad (in my case Dubai)

2.5 years ago I moved to Dubai with my wife and 2 kids and it was one of the best decisions I've made in my life.

Some personal context:

I was born and raised in Belgium, the center of Europe. I always lived close to my parents who came over very often to visit the kids. I never had the intention of moving to another country. I did travel a lot and I've met many of you around the globe.

Then with the Covid hysteria and lockdowns I actually felt more and more how insane the policies in the West were. I was paying 50% income tax + 21% VAT on everything and meanwhile I saw the quality of life deteriorate rapidly.

My son was going to kindergarten/FS2 (depending on your school system) and the quality of education was horrible. Private schools aren't really a thing in Belgium, you have a handful in the 2 major cities (Antwerp and Brussels) but these are the exception and 95% of the students are from expats. Belgium's public education system used to be top notch, growing up I always felt that for me it worked great. But when my son went to school, he wasn't challenged, everything went at the pace of the slowest kids. He was bored in school and I felt I was letting him down.

At the time we were living in a small village (10k people) in a nice house with a huge garden, I loved that house. It was at the end of a cul de sac and no one ever came there. Then in 12 months time we had 2 burglaries in 2 different houses in the street. For the first one our house was actually the main target, however we got lucky since I accidentally left the lights on everywhere. On the cameras I installed I saw them jump over our 2 meter (6.5 feet) fence, walk to the house, check inside and jump back over the fence. Since then we didn't really feel that safe anymore.
The 2nd burgarly was during the day and they broke in to a house where they had 2 guard dogs and only ran away when the owners came home.
They were never caught, the police didn't do much.

The combination of covid hysteria, bad education, safety concerns and high taxation while not getting anything in return made me actively start looking for alternatives.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@CameronWalkerSZ 我每天还会接到几个骚扰电话。十年前的骚扰电话更多。你可以买一个中国移动的和多号，保护自己的主号码

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@_jonasschnelli_ The man himself is a joke

[Sean Frank @Seanfrank]

all social issues we fight about stem from this.

I grew up in a blue collar town at the start of the opioid epidemic.

I knew 17 year olds who died of opioid overdoses.

The issue has only gotten worse.

Whoever fixes this has my vote.

Stop Americans from dying in the streets.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@OvigweEguegu Infrastructure refers to charging points. Because compared with fuel vehicles, electric vehicles do not need to strengthen road facilities. Compared to oil and gas stations, I think electricity and charging stations are easy to achieve.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@BlackLabelAdvsr This is nonsense that lacks evidence and logic. Is the US government stupid for allowing this software to run in the US? Don't let your hatred cloud your reason.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

2023 has arrived. The world is not getting better. Maybe suffering is the normal human condition. Ideology is not a cure for humanity, it is only a means of mobilizing for war.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@fuxianyi 对于私下会谈的内容，如果想公开给媒体，起码要经过双方确认吧？单方面公布，确实不合适，谁能确认你说的内容？很容易引起扯皮。关键是习也确实批评了小土豆夹带私货，“而且我们也不是那样进行的”。

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

Bitcoin is a valuable product, but it needs help from the government. An anarchic wildlife world cannot produce a market. Free trade must be under the protection of power, in a society with laws. Otherwise there would be no property ownership, no industry.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@george_sowers good

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

The relative decline of the West is mostly internal rather than external. Confrontation with the outside world, especially with China, will only hurt both sides. The Chinese really have no intention of changing the West. We are not a threat.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

I don't think a culture or a value or an ideology is judged good or bad by slogans like "everyone is equal" or "human natural rights", but by its ability to survive in a cruel environment. Western values should also be judged by their survivability and sustainability.

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

Americans blame China for their decline. This is why the US is provoking confrontation with China. Is this attribution correct? In my opinion, the Chinese have absorbed the civilization of the Westerners, but the Westerners have deviated from their traditions.

[Jeremy Allaire - jerallaire.arc @jerallaire]

Loved this conversation with @danheld — https://t.co/u05WfE1h7V

[锋二瓜 Feng @fengziqing]

@EndFiat21M @lopp Modern humans still make a few of the same mistakes as ancient, but you can't generalize it to the fact that all of humanity is still repeating the mistakes of the past. Don't be extreme. Even the ancients do not repeat the older men. I don't want to go back to ancient times.